What Compels a Grown Man to Drive Into Tornadoes

Sean Casey's job is to find huge storms, drive into them, and capture the mayhem on camera. Here's why he does it.

Sean Casey's job is to find huge storms, and drive straight into them with a camera to capture the mayhem. He shoots for IMAX and has an array of cameras and lenses, but his most impressive equipment is his tornado intercept vehicle (TIV). It's an 8-ton truck with spikes to keep it grounded, and flaps to stop wind from getting underneath the body. He's been running towards tornadoes for over a decade. Here's what he's learned.

What were you thinking the first time you put the TIV into action?

Ideally, you have the tornado a mile away and it's coming at you, [but] you've settled everything down, you've had time to get everything ready. These vehicles, they do need some time to get the skirts down so nothing can get underneath, and then we have spikes that go into the ground.

The first time, though, it formed on top of us, so there wasn't any time to do anything— just all of a sudden we were in it.

How did that happen?

We could see the storm, the base underneath the storm, we could see the funnel. And to our south about two miles, two or three miles, we saw the swirls. We saw that circulation. It was starting to manifest itself on the ground. But there was no actual condensation tube all the way to the ground yet. It was just a little funnel up in the cloud base.

"It's hard for me still to accept that they exist, because they just seem like they shouldn't."

We decided to drive for it, thinking it was going to strengthen before we got there. But when we got there it actually weakened, and so all of a sudden those little dust swirls on the ground were no longer there. It's kind of like when you're on a boat and you see the shark's fin and you know where the shark is, but then all of a sudden when it submerges, you don't know where the shark is. Well we didn't know where that tornado was anymore.

We started meandering to the east a little bit, and then all of a sudden all that reddish brown Kansas dust just exploded around us until we were completely blinded. It was like 80-90 mph winds initially. We were kind of getting sand-lasted, and we were trying to back out of it, and we couldn't see. We could only see the telephone poles next to the road. So we were kind of navigating by the telephone poles to get out of there.

You're going in reverse to get out of there?

Yeah. This was a little dirt road, you're not doing any type of ten-point turn when you can't even see the ground.

What was the sound like?

It's different. Every tornado has a kind of a different sound. It depends how fast the winds are, and what it's picking up. A normal-sized tornado going over farmland—it'll be like you're next to Niagara Falls, that constant roaring and that constant pressure. If a tornado starts going over a town and picking things up, it gets more of a rumble. A lot of people describe the sound of tornadoes like freight trains. I think that's usually because they're in a town or outside of a town, and the tornado has that rumble.

And then you have these little sub-vorteces too, underneath the main circulation. There's no tornado yet, but you have little powerful spinups, and they'll be more of like a hissing sound. They happen so quickly and they happen all around you. It is so dang spooky. It's unbelievable that you're hearing this sound.

That excitement of chasing—it never goes away?

I've been chasing since '99, so this will be the 16th year, and of course all the driving gets old and staying in hotels gets old. But when you have those big days, those big days of potential, and then finally you have a real nice tornado… That doesn't get old at all.

I never thought about the life-on-the-road aspect, since tornadoes happen in such consistent locations.

Oh no, it's tons of moving. If you're being active while you're out there, you're probably averaging 400 miles a day. When I say 400 miles, sometimes you're taking dirt roads, or you're creeping along. That can mean eight to ten hours of just moving. You pick up some bad habits when you're out there. Caffeinated drinks, chewing tobacco.

"It's this Armageddon thing, like the zombies are loose and all these drivers are driving around."

But then you get these moments of thrill.

Sometimes you don't even get a tornado, but you get the right lighting, and you get the softball-sized hail landing around you. That's incredible. You can have a storm structure that's just beautiful. Those can obviously make your day, too.

But there's nothing like being within a couple hundred yards of a huge tornado. It's just hard for me still, after all these years, to accept that they exist, because they just seem like they shouldn't. It's a true monster. You're witnessing a true monster. I think you'd feel the same way if you were underwater and here was a Loch Ness monster.

How do you feel when you're inside a tornado?

That's when I'm filming, so I'm just concentrating on the camera. Because there's a lot going on when you're that close—you're constantly trying to keep the head of it, to keep with it, what the conditions are, is it a gravel road or a dirt road, is it wet, is it muddy, are you gonna be able to make it... And so you're focusing on the variables and the relationship to filming it, and wanting to really capture that footage.

But this year we're actually putting pods in front of the tornado. And so I'M jumping out of the vehicle to film our guys putting these pods in front of the tornado.

How does that work? You exit the vehicle and then what?

The pods have an anemometer, SO they measure wind direction and speed. We have two pods that are on the back of the vehicle. They're kind of in these holsters, and so somebody gets out, grabs one of the pods, stakes it into the ground and hammers it in real quick. All the while, of course, the tornado's coming.

Have you exited the vehicle to install them?

Oh yeah, I have to jump out too, because I'm the filmmaker, I have to film the guy putting the pod in. And you're right, we've been chasing in this tanks, and once you're outside it ,,, it's like being in a boat, and now you're gonna jump in the water with the sharks. You feel a lot more vulnerable. And then that ticking clock gets a lot louder when you're outside.

How do you figure out how close you can get—and when you need to retreat?

Well the vehicle is hopefully pointed to the north, that's the way we want to go. And if we were to get caught by the tornado… you'll have a tailwind at least if you get enveloped.

Wait, so you're outside and you're planning on having a tailwind if you have to run to the vehicle?

The counter-clockwise winds, the first winds you would start to experience would be southerly, so it would be a tail wind if you were going north.

So you exit the vehicle, and I assume you close the door behind you …

No no, you leave it open. These aren't normal doors. These are doors that have bolts on the inside.

And that tornado is at an uncomfortably close distance.

It's fun because we know we're not gonna get hit. But it is coming at you. And so it's hard not to look over your shoulder when that's going on.

Does the experience of looking at it through the lens affect how you experience it?

It's a filter, and it kind of separates you from the moment. Because in a way you're looking at a screen, and you're looking at something that's happening on television, and of course if it's on television it's not really there. But it's a surreal moment anyway, so I don't even know if the camera really takes that much away.

"'Oh my god, this is weather.' Because the sky gets alive with violence and beauty."

It's so weird, it's unbelievable out there. It's like this Armageddon thing, like the zombies are loose and all these drivers are driving around. It's crazy driving going on, and things are floating and houses are going up and material is flying around. It's so outside the norm that maybe the camera doesn't really mean anything, except maybe it's a bit soothing to look at an image that's small on a screen. Maybe.

What made you want to get into this?

It was something that was accessible, really. You could just jump in your car and drive out east, from California to Tornado Alley, and experience and film it. You didn't have to go to Australia to film great white sharks, or go to Hawaii or Central America for volcanoes. It's in our backyard.

When I was out there, and first started chasing in '99, I just fell in love with it. It was just so unexpected. Because I live in L.A., so the kind of weather we get—it's really non-violent stuff, it's a yawner. Then you're out there and you're like, 'Oh my god, this is weather.' Because the sky gets alive with violence and beauty.

"You can't be completely safe out there if you want to get shots that do justice to the power."

Yeah, it's something to be underneath these supercells, because there is so much of that beautiful violence, and you're immersed in it. And you're underneath it too. It's like being underneath this — I don't want to call it a deity, but this large mass. You have a visual mountain that's over you, and all that crazy beautiful movement, and the lightning and the hail and the tornado. It's real fun out there.

What are some things you know now that you wish you had known earlier?

When we first started chasing… there was a protocol on how you chase. In a way it's been trying to get away from some of that safety net. You can't be completely safe out there if you really want to get shots that do justice to the power.

So it's a psychological factor too.

Yeah, it has been. But that said, I get nervous. It depends on the day, and if you can see the tornado and you know how fast it's going. But every tornado is different, so you have a very short time to get acclimated to that tornado, and to the environment, the road network that surrounds that tornado, to make the decisions on how close, and where you're going to be.

Those are all decisions you're making quickly.

Really quickly. But at the beginning of the day there will be a certain potential for violent tornadoes, and if it's a day gonna produce violent tornadoes, then you're a little more cautious as you start your chase. If that tornado forms, you're gonna give it a little more room. And if it's a day when the tornadoes aren't going to be that strong, or tornadoes at all, then you're extremely aggressive, and you're right underneath where they're going to form. You're right there.

Do you think about the people who have died storm chasing?

That's affected me hugely. Those are guys that I really cared about, and they were quite experienced. And we were on El Reno too—we were just to the south of them the storm chasers who were killed in 2013. That's made me more cautious, certainly in the situations where you don't have a well-defined tornado. It's in the murk, you know. You don't know exactly where it is, you can't really see that well because you have so much rain being wrapped around it. That day had massive potential for violent tornadoes. And so on those days, those destructive days when you can't really see that tornado, we we're not chasing in front of it anymore.

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